


You are a runner and I am my father's son

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: 21 Jump Street, Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Sibling Incest, Teenchesters, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 13:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenchesters!Sam and Dean are on the case at the local highschool looking for ghosts. While Dean tries to keep up his grades, keep up appearances, and keep anyone from getting hurt, unbeknownst to him there are undercover cops at the school looking for juvanile offenders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Liberties have been taken with what year this is set since Jump Street was 80s and the Winchesters are 90s at this point. (Sam is 16, Dean is 20)
> 
> You don’t really need to know 21 Jump Street to understand this other than the fact that there are [cops pretending to be high school kids](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Jump_Street) in order to do drug busts and stuff like that. You may also be interested to know that Johnny Depp played Tom Hanson, and Peter DeLuise played Doug Penhall (you may also know him as the FBI director from Jus In Bello). The McQuaid brothers were one of their funnier covers. If you’re curious about the McQuaid brothers, then direct your attention to this [Best Of montage ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c66nx69_T0)from youtube.

Dean is twenty years old. He can break down and rebuild any gun you care to name. He can fix any car. He can hit a moving target with a knife from, like, a zillion miles away. He is also going back to high school. This, clearly, is bullshit. 

There’s something going on at the local high school, right after classes started, of course, and John’s about to head off to deal with a much bigger problem. He won’t talk about it. It means he might be on the trail of whatever got Mary. Dean’s learned not to ask. 

Instead of just having Dean hang around, get Sammy to ask a few questions, the usual talking to strangers, so they can waste it on their own, John’s deemed it too dangerous. Sammy is not to set foot in that school without Dean there to watch his back. And, of course he had to bring up the fact that Dean may or may not have never technically graduated from high school (not that he dropped out to work when Dad got injured in a hunt or anything – not that Dean minds, it’s just kind of unfair to blame him for it). So, in a bizarre display of parenting that Dean can only assume comes from some long-buried whatever to do with mom, John’s assigned Dean to undercover duty and Dean’s going back to school working triple duty: find and eliminate the problem, watch Sammy, and graduate for real this time.

Sammy, half helpfully, half being a little bitch, pointed out that they weren’t going to be there a whole year anyway, so what did it matter if Dean went to school and Dean came up with, like, nine different ways to avoid that scenario, but an order’s an order, so it’s Day One of Dean’s Last Year (again) and he’s driving them to school while John heads off in the other direction.

Dean’s got a job down at the local crappy gas station cum Kwik-E-Mart that he’s fairly indifferent about. It’s boring ninety percent of the time, but he can look at the skin mags and no one cares, and his boss lets him take home the shit that’s expired so they save a bundle on groceries. If it’s a long hunt, they’re gonna need that extra food. Sammy can put away half a loaf of bread in one sitting and still be hungry. Mind you, Wonder Bread’s kind of the anti-filling. Dean thinks there’s got to be some kind of weird supernatural phenomenon at work. You shouldn’t eat something and be hungrier than you were before it went in your mouth. So there’s that, plus full-time school, and all that other jazz and if he screws this up… there’s no way that the money John left is going to last, or that the gas station slave wage is going to cover the rest, so Dean’s got that to figure out.

But that’s not so bad. Dean’s done it before, he can do it again. The worst part is that Sammy’s not even laughing. If he’d laughed, Dean could have smacked him or something but the little punk looks sorry for him. Like Dean’s the poor bastard who shot up to, like, twice his original height during the summer and who can’t take three steps without falling over himself. Dean calls him Sky Dancer after those toys. The commercial is on all the freaking time even though the things are like a million years old. Anyway, you crank ‘em up or something and these dolls spin around like helicopters and fly into the air. They’re supposed to be all graceful and shit, but it’s obviously the dumbest toy ever since they’re hard-edged projectiles. So yeah, Sammy’s Sky Dancer until Dean gets bored of it; Girly when stationary, grievous bodily harm waiting to happen when in motion.

Sammy’s got his backpack and his notebooks, and his required reading, and a knife, and he’s brushed his insane hair that used to lie flat and now has developed a life of its own, curling like when he was a really little kid again, and he’s put on the new jeans Dean stole for him from the local Wal Mart. Apart from the fact that he’s eight years tall, he’ll fit right in. He usually does. The girls’ll probably dig him, if he manages to pull his nose out of a book and stop hunching over like he’s about to bang his head on the top of a doorframe anyway; he’s good-looking.

Sammy puts a hand on Dean’s arm as he takes the keys out of the Impala. He looks serious. Sammy has three settings this already delightful year: serious/worried, bitchy and the third one, which Dean really tries not to think about. Mostly it’s bitchy, but sometimes he’ll turn to Dean with this furrowed brow, and big puppy-dog eyes and ask if Dean’s alright, or if he’s happy, or tell him weird shit like, “it’ll be okay.” Half the time Dean has no idea what he’s even talking about. 

“It’ll be okay,” Sammy says, proving Dean’s point. He bites his lip, earnest and wide-eyed.

Dean tries really hard not to look at Sammy’s mouth, or at his huge bear-paw of a hand. He smirks and ruffles Sammy’s hair instead. “Whatever, Sammy.”

Sammy goes from worried to bitchy in point three seconds. “Dean!” he says, shoving Dean. “Don’t do that. And for fuck’s sake, it’s Sam.”

Dean thinks about saying something about _Sam’s_ increasingly foul language but Sammy’s already out of the car and Dean doesn’t want to embarrass him in front of the kids making their way into the school.

Sammy’s got his backpack, and his notebooks, and his required reading. Dean has a gun. And some pocket lint. And he’s two years older than everyone else. And he actually has to try this year. And there’s something nasty lurking in the woodshed, as Sammy likes to say.

He is so totally, royally and officially fucked. Like, drop the soap, bend over in a prison shower, no lube kind of fucked.

Sammy hefts his backpack and smiles reassuringly down at Dean. Back to serious. It’s like a freaking yo-yo. Also, this being taller than Dean thing is not okay. One day they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth and Dean looked up into the mirror at Sammy and realized he was looking up. Just, all of a sudden his brother wasn’t the little kid he had been two seconds ago, and Dean’s stomach took a sudden visit to his feet and his heart came calling on his throat and now he walks around feeling like his insides aren’t where they’re supposed to be, every time he looks at his brother. Sam was grinning at him in the mirror, disgusting mouthful of toothpaste and said, “Took you long enough to notice.” Everything’s been kind of weird since then.

They walk in together and find the principal’s office. The school is the usual slightly grim blandness. Grey floors, blue lockers, shiny wooden doors with grubby handles. Cases full of trophies and crap stuck up on the walls about chess club, and the next football game, and Don’t Do Drugs posters by the fire doors. Dean feels like he’s stuck in a death loop, doomed to walk the same freaking halls for the rest of time.

The office is small, and smells of industrial cleaner and old carpet. The light is just a little too dim for comfort. There are two other guys sitting there, slouched down in the only chairs. Their jeans are ripped at the knee, and they’ve got jean jacket vests and plaid overshirts. The shorter one’s wearing a bandanna and the football player built one has an earring. Dean hates grunge. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and ignores them.

“Hi,” Sammy says. “You guys new too?”

The big guy grunts.

“I’m Sam,” he says. “This is my brother Dean. Winchester.”

The two guys look at each other and then back at Sammy and Dean. Mostly at Dean. “Oh yeah?” the shorter guy says and Dean’s grateful in a sideways sort of way that there’s at least one other guy at this school who’s going to get called ‘pretty’ behind his back. Hey, Dean knows his own face, doesn’t mean he likes it, but a weapon’s a weapon – turned back at you or not. “I’m Tommy,” the guy says, “and this is _my_ brother Doug. McQuaid.”

They’re interrupted by a blue-haired old granny of a secretary who eyeballs the McQuaid brothers like they’re the scum of the world then turns her beady eyes on Dean. “Winchester, Dean?” she says.

Dean raises a hand. “Guilty.”

“Mmm, you’ll be with Mrs. Watson, room 314-J, with McQuaid, Douglas.” She examines the paperwork in front of her. Dean isn’t surprised when she looks up at Sam and smiles. “Young man, you must be Winchester, Samuel.”

“Sam,” Sammy says.

“You’ll be with Mrs. Amos, room 118-B, with McQuaid, Thomas.”

The McQuaid brothers look at Dean and then look at Sammy. Sammy’s sixteen. He’s been up a grade ever since junior high so he’s a junior. Dean got held back in Iowa once and now this. His little brother, who is four years younger, is in the fucking grade below him. They’ll probably have classes together.

Dean tells himself he’s under deep cover. It’s like when their dad pretends to be a cop, or a doctor, or whatever. It’s just like that. Dean tells himself it’s better this way. John’s totally right, he can keep a closer eye on Sammy. Dean thinks about the gun tucked in the back of his jeans, and the ghosts he’s killed, the people he’s saved, the monsters he’s helped John with. It doesn’t help. His ears are still turning red with embarrassment. 

The old bat gives Dean another long, withering look and slaps his schedule into his hand. “Come with me,” she says. The McQuaids get to their feet with exaggerated groans. “Samuel, you may go to your homeroom.”

Sammy gives Dean that worried smile again. “Have a good day, okay, Dean?” he says. “I’ll see you later.”

They have third period English together.

Dean musters a grin. “Go get ‘em kiddo,” he says. His face feels like it’s on fire. Dean hopes no one can see it, but he doubts he’s that lucky.

Then he, Tommy and Doug are brought before the principal. The principal has their files on the desk and Dean’s got real good at reading those sorts of things upside-down. Their attendance record is as patchy as his own, Doug’s been kept back a year so at least Dean’s not totally alone in this, and Tommy’s done time in Juvie. Dean’s file is three times as thick, the dozens of schools he’s attended fattening it up. The school records say he’s nineteen. At least they don’t think he’s as pathetic as he actually is, just a little bit. Why John couldn’t have faked him being eighteen he doesn’t know. He thinks it might be a bit of a slap on the wrist regarding Dean’s lack of effort in graduating before.

“You three,” the principal says, tapping one finger on their paperwork, “will be watched. I expect you to be here on time, in class, and to be attentive. There will be no fighting, no going off campus, no hullaballoo of any kind. Are we clear?”

The McQuaids make some half-snorted “hullaballoo” echo and bump fists but Dean just says, “Yessir,” which is a little awkward since the principal is a woman. She scowls at him. He meant it respectfully, it just came out wrong. Awesome. Now she thinks he’s a total butt-munch.

Dean goes to his homeroom and sits at the back, so people can’t stare at him. Doug is making a big noise anyway, and Dean manages to slip in mostly unnoticed. It’s senior year so beyond reading their names off a bit of paper, the teacher looks like she could give less of a shit. She doesn’t make them introduce themselves. A pretty girl smiles at Dean and he wonders if it would count as statutory rape in this state if he fucked her. He slides a little lower in his seat and tries to make himself invisible. The only evil thing in this class is the fact that some of these kids still haven’t figured out the wonders of deodorant. 

Doug sits in the middle of the room and spends most of homeroom giving everyone shit. Dean keeps an eye on him as he jots out a list of things he wants to have done before John gets back. He’s twenty years old and he’s still in fucking high-school. He can’t let the side down any more than he already has. But Doug’s brother, the little shit with a bad attitude and a juvie record is in with Sammy. Dean wonders if that’s not more dangerous than some ghost. Ghosts Sammy knows how to handle. Rock salt isn’t going to keep McQuaid down for very long if he starts something. 

Come lunchtime he’s already hearing rumours that Tommy carries a gun to school and once killed a man.

Of course, he’s hearing all kinds of shit about himself too, but he got pretty good at ignoring that years ago.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s an itch between Dean’s shoulder-blades like someone’s watching him. He’s pretty sure it’s Doug McQuaid and not a ghost though. Annoying sure, and Dean’s not sure what the guy’s problem is, but he’s not going to get into it with him. Not unless they go for Sammy. Dean’s got a job to do and he’ll be damned before he screws it up.

Dean knows Sammy is looking for him during lunch period but he’s investigating the locker rooms and the bathrooms. He probably looks like a total perv. There’s nothing there but dudes taking a piss, changing, slapping each other with towels and, in one stall, some moron trying to jerk off. Dean kicks that stall on the way out and the crappy lock gives and the door bounces open. He’s already out of the room, and it was a little mean, but it makes him feel better.

*~*~*

Sammy has soccer practice after school and Dean has work so he can’t watch his brother, but Sammy threw a bitch fit and refused to not play. John has no idea he’s not just going along with Dean after work, this is not what they discussed. But Sammy’s got a temper and Dean can’t make him do anything these days. He’d have to really lay into Sammy to get him to back down, and Dean means actually lay into him in the smack him a few times sort of way, and the last thing they need is CPS showing up. Plus, he doesn’t really want to kick Sammy’s ass. The kid loves that stupid game. 

Dean sits behind the counter and tries to make heads or tails of King Lear. Fucking Shakespeare. When’s he going to need to know how to read this shit while he’s hunting?

Tommy McQuaid comes into the station and leans his elbows on the counter, chewing obnoxiously on a wad of gum. “Winchester,” he says and pops the gum. Doug comes in behind him. They’re practically casing the joint. Dean’s done it, he knows how to look for security cameras, check out the ratio of employees to customers, compare that to the percentage that the employees give a damn.

Dean gives them his very best impression of John’s ‘no bullshit’ look. “Steal anything and I’ll kick your ass,” he says.

“Actually,” Doug says, “we heard you’d been here for a few weeks before school and figured you’d know someplace good to hang out.”

Dean is surprised. He closes his book without saving his place (page two) and shrugs. They’re not exactly the type of guys he likes to hang out with. Dean doesn’t really hang out with guys unless you count his brother or his dad. Either way, these two are extending the hand of friendship and Dean feels his face heat up again.

“Uh,” he says. 

Tommy gives him a half-sneer, half-smile. “Come on,” he says. “It’s not like we’re going to narc on you to your old man.”

“Look,” Dean says, feeling short of temper. He wants out of this town more than he can describe. “I’ve got my brother to watch, I don’t really go out all that much. Can’t help you.”

There’s a moment, just a split second, where Dean thinks Tommy looks genuinely surprised and where Doug’s face creases up into some sort of concern before the moment passes. “Bull,” Doug says. “No way a guy like you doesn’t know the cool places to hang.”

There was a ghost, plot ninety-three in the local graveyard that Dean took care of on his own. There’s the morgue, he’s been there a few times. And there was a raw-head that Dean helped his dad with two towns over, he hung out a lot there, casing a block of mostly abandoned houses. There was almost a black dog that turned out to be a stray, closer to down town. There’s the bars he hustles pool at. There’s this shit-hole garage cum gas station. There’s the local Wal Mart where Dean steals more expensive necessities for Sam and buys groceries in bulk. There’s the neighbourhood that Sam’s paper route takes him on. 

Dean sighs. “You guys got fakes?” he asks. 

“Do we have fakes?” Doug asks. “Of course we do. We’re the McQuaid brothers!”

“Hah!” they both say.

Dean picks up his Lear in a meaningful sort of way. “Friday night, I’ll show you a few places,” he says. It’s better than nothing.

*~*~*

“So what do you think of the McQuaid brothers?” Sammy asks wryly that night, shoveling mac and cheese into his mouth.

“Hah!” Dean says. “I think we need a catchphrase dude, I’m feeling left out.”

“How about, ‘Yeah, like the rifle’?”

Dean groans and finishes his beer. “Five times,” he says.

“Eight.” Sammy ticks off on his fingers. “Homeroom, Calc, Chem, French, P.E. and four students, one of whom thinks you’re ‘totally, like, amazing or something.’” Sammy goes back to eating. “Tommy’s a dick,” he says around his mouthful. “And he asks a lot of questions.” 

Sammy’s got a real mother of a bruise from where Dean didn’t pull a punch enough when they were sparring. Sammy taps the spot on his arm. “Got real curious about that. And about if you know where to get drugs. And he figured out you carry. Nice going, by the way, asshole. You’re going to get suspended if a teacher spots that.”

“Watch your mouth, Sky Dancer,” Dean says. His mac and cheese is congealing and he doesn’t feel very hungry but he eats anyway. It tastes kind of like cheese-flavoured glue. He puts his fork back down, and kills the beer instead. “I’m going out with them on Friday. You going to be okay?”

Sammy, who, for three seconds was almost a normal human being again looks at Dean with a frown. Bitchy Sammy then. “You’ll have homework,” he says. He reaches out and takes Dean’s bowl, eating the leftovers.

“It’s just one night,” Dean says. He cracks another beer. “Who died and made you Dad?”

Sammy’s frown turns into a scowl. “God, Dean,” he says. “Why would you even want to hang out with them anyway?”

Dean has a headache and he still has homework to do. He hasn’t even started it yet. He pushes his chair back out from the table. “Maybe I’m sick of your face,” Dean says, even though he doesn’t mean it. “Wash the dishes.”

Of course, the bitch of it is, is that Dean’s short on credits for the stuff he’s bad at, the stuff he used to skip. So it’s all homework for things he struggles with. It’s already eleven-thirty when Sammy comes in to their room and flops down on Dean’s bed, wrinkling Dean’s mostly completed History assignment.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Sammy asks, hands behind his head, stretched out so his feet are on the floor and his jeans ride down and his shirt rides up so all Dean can see is the summer-brown skin of his stomach and hips. He stares at King Lear and doesn’t see a single word. He wonders if he’s dyslexic or just kind of stupid. It seems a little late to find out now.

“No,” Dean says. He won’t ask for Sammy’s help. He won’t.

Sammy hitches up a knee and prods at Dean with his bare foot. This is Sammy’s third mood. The one other than bitchy or worried. “Hurry up,” he says, and one hand tucks into the waistband of his boxers, long fingers disappearing. His foot presses against Dean’s chest, his thudding heart, and then his stomach, then against the ridge of his dick under his worn to softness jeans.

Dean bats Sammy’s foot away. “Not now,” he says. 

It’s his fault. Obviously. Sammy’s sixteen, he’s too young to know better. 

Somehow, Dean did this and now he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

He can’t even put it off, as Sammy proves like five minutes later, because five minutes later and Dean hasn’t read a single word more, he’s got his jeans undone instead, pushed down around his thighs and he’s jerking himself off with one hand and he’s got Sammy’s dick halfway down his throat and Sammy’s hands gentle against the curve of his skull.

“Fuck,” Sammy says, coming. “God, fuck.”

Language, Dean thinks, swallowing, panting for breath.

“Your fucking mouth,” Sammy says, licking a smear of his own come off Dean’s face. He slides down and pushes Dean’s hand away to finish jerking him off, one hand still cradling Dean’s head, like he’s going to kiss him. Dean turns his face away. He doesn’t even know who this person is any more, this person who used to be his brother. This third mood, this thing between them.

Maybe this is Sam, Dean thinks. 

Dean’s tired after he comes but he hauls his jeans back up, gets himself another beer to wash the taste of jizz out of his mouth and goes back to his book. Sammy makes himself a three-layer sandwich, flips through the television channels and goes to bed at midnight. They’re out of bread again and the milk is starting to smell dangerously off.

Dean passes out at the kitchen table and wakes up when Sammy puts a cup of coffee down in front of him and announces they have half an hour before they need to be at school. It’s a fifteen minute drive, sometimes twenty. Dean needs a shower and a shave and he hasn’t written anything about his initial impressions of King fucking Lear.

Monsters don’t wait until you’re ready and refreshed and showered or not. Neither does high school. They’re out the door in ten minutes, and Dean might not be done his assignment, but he at least doesn’t smell like B.O., he can totally rock the stubble thing, and they’re not late. Sammy’s got his 4.0 to maintain and Dean’s got all of homeroom to try and cram in this assignment.

Doug’s changed seats so he’s next to Dean. There used to be a kind of goofy-looking kid with glasses there and Dean guesses the swap was Doug’s idea. “You look like the back end of a bad night,” Doug says.

Dean gives him the finger, subtly though, so no one else can see it. “I’m a busy man,” he says, hoping Doug will get the hint.

“Thought you said there wasn’t anything to do around here,” Doug says.

“Just your mom,” Dean says absently and Doug grins at him.

“It’s just so the teacher can weed out the dip-shits of the class,” Doug says, low, leaning across the space between them and gesturing at Dean’s feeble attempt to have an opinion on a book he can barely understand. “Just talk about Lear’s deteriorating mental illness, and if it’s like the two older ones say it is, or if it was a cheap trick to give his favourite kid more than the others. And about how it might be both. And how later, he’s diagnosable today,” Doug says. “You get in their good books if they think you’ve actually read the whole thing ahead of time.”

Dean hadn’t noticed Lear was crazy. The man’s daughter was a disappointment, and yeah, the old guy might have over-reacted, but shit, she could have just told the old man what he wanted to hear. Dean’s a good liar though. He can already think of like three or four different ways to say what Doug just told him. And yeah, okay, so some of what he read makes a little more sense now.

“Talk about the Fool, if you’re still short,” Doug adds. “That’ll come up later.”

Dean looks at Doug with more gratitude than he’d normally be comfortable with. “Dude,” he says. “I owe you one.”

He’s too tired to wonder how Doug “couldn’t give a shit, bad attitude and worse reputation” McQuaid (hah!) knows anything about King Lear when his GPA is worse than Dean’s own and has spent his free time (and most of his class time) making friends with the druggies and douchebags of the high school.

*~*~*

Dean changes in the bathroom for Phys. Ed.

It’s a move that screams “I have a small dick” but firstly, he’s got a 9mm in his jeans that he doesn’t want anyone to see, and secondly, he’s already got a few too many scars to blame on falling off of bikes, or out of trees. Even something like skateboarding wouldn’t explain them. They don’t look like someone’s been whaling on him (the bruises Sammy’s given him sparring kind of do) but they sure as shit don’t look good.

He comes out with his gun bundled up in his clothing and stuffs the whole tangle into his locker. Doug is watching him with a shrewd look on his face. Doug looks at the bathroom and then at Dean. “Got a little problem, Winchester?” he asks.

“Fuck yourself,” Dean says, and it comes out too mean, not enough like a joke to laugh it off. He spins the lock on his locker and hitches up the socks of his ugly gym uniform to hide the scars on his calves.

They’ve got track and he and Doug wind up racing. Not like they meant to, but they match pace and then it’s a competition. Dean’s practically military trained. No way some pot smoking grunger is going to beat him, but Doug matches him the whole way around. It’s oddly satisfying anyway. Dean feels like if he just runs a little harder and a little faster… Paging Dr. Freud.  
Christ, he’s pathetic.

The final whistle blows and Doug staggers to a halt, wheezing finally as Dean does likewise. Doug puts his hands on his knees and looks up at Dean. “Shit,” he says. “Are you like the T2? Should I be worried?”

The teacher frowns at them. “Go to the showers if you want to live,” he says and blows the whistle again. “Hup, hup, hup.”

Dean realizes that he’s sweaty and he can’t just go back to the bathroom and change. He’s got half a day left. No one wants to be that guy.

He scrubs at himself as fast as he can and thankfully most of the other guys are either too busy horsing around with their buddies, or too busy subtly checking each other out to see if they’re normal to really look at him. He’s back at his locker, towel around his waist, shoulders up as though that can hide a damn thing and, after he’s got his shirt on, he turns around to see Doug standing there, watching him again.

“What are you, some kind of a pervert or something?” Dean says. “Quit staring.”

“So, uh, that’s why you change in the bathroom?” Doug asks.

Dean clutches his jeans, feeling the gun balled up in them. “What’s it to you, faggot?” he snaps. There’s plenty of room down this corridor of lockers. Doug’s not hemming him in. Dean still feels cornered.

Doug is giving him what looks a hell of a lot like Sammy’s “it’s okay” look. Dean feels feverish and stupid. He drops the towel. There’s a couple of nasty scars he’s got under there too but he pulls on his shorts and jeans and then, staring Doug down, shoves his gun in the back of his pants and tugs his shirt down over it. “Get a good enough look?” Dean says. “Or you got any other questions?”

“That thing real?” Doug asks and Dean nods, mouth in a thin line. He’s fucked this one up. Like, a lot. Doug blows out a tired-sounding breath. “Hey, man,” he says. “I know we don’t really know each other, but…my old man’s…if you ever need anyone to talk to about, you know, the rest of it…”

“I don’t,” Dean says and starts walking. He stops by the door to say, “Sorry about your Dad,” because he can’t say nothing, but that’s not what he hunts, and there’s nothing he can do, and then he walks out.

This is not good.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the fuck, Dean!” Sam says, shoving him, hard. Dean’s lower back thuds against the edge of the kitchen counter. “Are you clinically retarded?” Dean doesn’t move; Sam’s hands clenched in his shirt, pressed a little too close with the rest of his body. Sam lets go and stomps over to the other side of the room, pushing his hands through his hair.

Dean shuffles back into motion and he stares into the woefully empty fridge. “Maybe,” he says. He’s not that hungry anyway. He’s got a few beers left. He’s also got a metric fuck-ton of homework left too, but that really doesn’t seem like the point right now. His back hurts. Normally he’d ask Sammy to give him a massage, kid’s got hands like a magician, but since Sammy’s the one who did it in the first place, Dean doesn’t figure he’s going to want to help out.

“After all the shit you’ve given me, after years and years of having this crap shoved down my throat, and you’re the asshole who pulls a fucking gun in the locker room?” Sam kicks the wall, leaving a scuff mark. Dean makes a mental note to make his brother scrub that away when he’s not so angry. He thinks he might just do it himself, avoid another fight.

Apart from growing what seems like a foot in five minutes, Sammy’s slowly filling out so when he’s not tripping over himself, he’s actually getting good enough to match Dean when they spar. But it’s not just his body that’s changing. Thing is, Sammy’s always been a sulker and a tantrum thrower and Dean used to be pretty good about dealing with it – okay so maybe he usually just gave in, but whatever. But now it’s not childish tears and the occasionally kicked shin or pinched arm. He’s got himself a short fuse on a big temper now, a mean, teenage-hormone fueled creature in his blood and usually it’s John he goes for, the two of them tearing strips off each other. Usually, but not always.

It’s lose-lose no matter where you’re standing. If you ask Sammy, John’s an obsessive alcoholic who ruined the lives of his sons, _“For fuck’s sake, look at what you’ve done to Dean, do you even know?”_ And if you ask John, Sammy’s a selfish brat who doesn’t have any respect for duty, loyalty or family and is willing to let people die. And right there in the middle, taking most of the damage, is Dean who’s starting to think his brother thinks there’s something wrong with him and that his dad is a little disappointed in him, most of the time.

The point is that he doesn’t want to set Sammy off. 

Dean shrugs, resisting the urge to rub his back, or smack Sammy in return. “Yeah,” he says. “But you’re the smart one, kiddo, what was I supposed to do?”

“Change in the fucking bathroom!” Sammy says but Dean can see him easing down, wide shoulders slumping. “Pull it out through your fly if you’ve got to make a point.” 

Dean does not want to know about the story behind that advice.

He thinks about Sammy’s hands, bigger than his now, the same calluses except that Sammy has one on his finger from holding cheap pens and Dean doesn’t. He thinks about those hands cradling Sammy’s dick in some nameless locker room, the stink of teenage boy and chlorine in the air and the dirt on the floor that never really scrubs away and stops thinking when he realizes he’s getting hard.

Sammy sighs and Dean can hear the thud of his elbows against the cheap veneer of the table. He looks over and sure enough Sammy’s got his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. “What do we do now?” he says.

Dean sits down at the table and cracks open a beer with his ring. “I’ll talk to Doug,” he says. “It’s not…Look, he got suspicious because his old man beats him. I’ll get him to open up, share and care, we can hug and cry or whatever, and then we’ll be buddies. Buddies don’t narc. Don’t worry Sky Dancer, it’ll be okay.”

“I wish you’d quit with that, Dean,” Sammy says, “it’s never been funny.” 

They don’t really talk for the rest of the night. Dean breaks into the school, checking for weird lights, EMF and other supernatural signs. Of which there are none. He’s up the rest of the night trying to puzzle his way through his Spanish homework. It would be easier if he had the slightest grasp of English Grammar, since it’s hard to figure out what the subjunctive in Spanish is when you don’t know what a subjunctive is at all.

The next morning, somewhere between Dean’s third and fourth cup of coffee, Sammy puts his hand at the small of Dean’s back right over the bruise he gave Dean the night before and Dean stops, feeling like all the air’s been knocked out of him. “Leave it,” Sammy says, and slides his hand under Dean’s shirt, pulls out the 9mm and puts it on the counter. “Please.”

Dean gets his shit together long enough to take a jerky step away. “How’m I supposed to protect you?” he mutters.

Sammy sighs, hard enough that his hair blows up out of his eyes. “Don’t be a butthead,” he says.

*~*~*

Dean’s in English with Sammy, trying to ignore the way that he’s deliberately chewing on his pencil, smirking at Dean with his mouth wrapped around the eraser. The little bitch never chewed on pens before, he’s just doing it to make Dean squirm. Dean’s trying to think of suitable revenge for the fact that he’s spent the whole lesson trying not to pop wood, when the lights start to flicker and all the desks start to shake. There’s a high pitched screech from the PA system before all the speakers blow out and the sprinkler system turns on, drenching everyone.

Dean looks over at Sammy who’s shoving his book into his bag, like it matters if the fucking thing gets wet as he gets to his feet. “Okay, everyone,” Dean says. They’re on the ground floor which is good and the windows are big and don’t have bars, which is better. He shoves one of them open. “Everybody out. One at a time, stay calm, just hustle.”

They’ll say it’s an earthquake, later. Even though that’s clearly bullshit. This part of the US doesn’t get earthquakes. And earthquakes don’t make doors slam and rip lockers open and there’s high pressure building in the classroom like something’s going to turn real nasty real fast.

Their teacher is this hatched-faced crone with the heart of a sweet young kindergarten teacher and she’s clearly terrified. Dean puts his hand on her arm. “Ma’am,” he says. “I need you to get everyone out of here.” He sort of pushes her towards the window and then Doug’s there, shoving the kids into motion, but not meanly, professionally, calmly and suddenly everyone’s moving.

Sammy’s the last one to go, and he hesitates, says, “Dean-” and Dean digs his fingers into his brother’s arm hard enough that the skin goes white under his hand.

“You make sure everyone out there is okay,” Dean says and half manhandles him out the goddamn window. Then it’s just him and Doug. “C’mon McQuaid, time to go,” he says.

Three of the desks slam back against the wall and Dean might not have his gun but he’s got a can of salt and that’s got to be enough for right now. He flips the lid off and rings a hasty circle around himself and Doug who has his mouth open like he’s gonna fucking argue about it.

“Now,” Dean snaps over the sound of something howling or screaming. It’s kind of both.

“What the heck is this thing?” Doug says, sounding a lot less like a frightened kid than he ought to. There’s something up with Doug McQuaid but Dean doesn’t have time to figure it out.

He grabs Doug by the shirt and belt and pretty much shoves him out the window before jumping out after him. Dean can’t fight it until he knows what it is, but now he’s seen what it can do, and that’s something. Two windows blow out behind him, showering him in broken glass, but Sammy’s okay, everyone’s out, they’re so going to get a few days off school, and that’s better than a kick in the teeth any day.

*~*~*

“So, boy genius,” Dean says that night. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning their guns. “Any bright ideas?”

Sammy, in the living room clipping his toenails – and he’d better be using the fucking trash can this time – makes a thoughtful noise. “You said you didn’t get any EMF when you were there the other night, but now that it’s shown up…Who knows, maybe there’ll be ectoplasm or something.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He was right, they’ve got the rest of the week off while the school cleans everything up. It’ll give him more time to finish his homework, and figure out what the hell this thing is before they have to go back, putting everyone and more importantly, Sammy, in danger again. “It was really throwing shit around,” Dean says, “so that’s got to be some kind of poltergeist, right?”

Apparently Sammy’s toes have been given the all clear since he gets up and shuffles into the kitchen, stopping by the fridge to snag one of Dean’s beers before sitting down at the table with him. Dean gives him a hard look and Sammy smirks at him, pops the cap off and takes a long pull. It’s the same shit he was doing with the goddamn pencil earlier. And it’s working. Dean’s mouth is uncomfortably dry and his stomach is doing that awkward clench that’s a precursor to one mother of a hard on. Aaaaand there it is. He shifts in his chair and Sammy, the little bitch, is smirking at him again.

“We’re on the job,” Dean grates out. 

Sammy licks thoughtfully at the rim of the bottle. Where the fuck he learned to be such a tease from is something Dean doesn’t want to know. “ _You’re_ on the job,” he corrects. “ _I’m_ supposed to sit on my ass and let you deal with it on your own.” He sounds annoyed, and Dean isn’t sure how it all plays out in Sammy’s brain. The kid doesn’t want to hunt, but he’s equally as resentful when Dean gets sent out solo as he is when he’s supposed to help. Dean used to know everything there was to know about his brother.

“You still going out with the McQuaids, hah! on Friday?” Sammy asks.

“Maybe, but hey, haunted school,” Dean says. He thinks he might need to look into any violent deaths between the school opening and now. Probably start with the old newspapers and see if anything pops up, crosscheck at the morgue if something looks good. “One thing at a time and I’ll deal with this first. Idiot high school kids later.” 

Sammy takes another pull of the beer and looks at him, like he’s trying to pick apart Dean’s brain with just the power of his stare. Dean figures it won’t take his brother long. Not like he’s got much to hide.

*~*~*

Dean knows this is wrong. 

He is twenty years old, flat on his back, eyes shut so tight he’s seeing light patterns. He is twenty years old, pale scars on his body stark against the skin flushed and sweaty, veins in his arms standing out as he grips the headboard so his head doesn’t slam up against it. He is twenty years old letting his sixteen-year old brother fuck him.

“Oh God,” he groans, half-sick that he’s done this, he’s done something so wrong that here he is, fucking up his little brother every time they turn around. But the other half of that equation is that he’s digging his heels into the small of Sam’s back, stomach muscles shaking with the effort it takes to push back into the slow rock of Sam’s hips, of his dick, pressed up inside Dean.

Sam smooths a hand – half covering Dean’s head, too big, even for the rest of him and is Sam not done growing yet? – over the sweaty bristle of Dean’s hair. “Yeah,” he says, and when Dean opens his eyes, helpless not to look at him, the kid’s fucking smiling. Looking at Dean, at his sick twist of an older brother who fucked him up this bad. “You gonna come like this?” Sam asks, voice a low growl that makes Dean clench up around him, legs shaking, eyes screwed shut again. “I bet you could, huh, just like this without me putting my hands on you.”

One hand on the mattress, next to Dean’s head, the other still fucking _petting_ him, thumb smoothing over the thud of Dean’s pulse in his temple. 

“Sammy,” he says, and has no idea what he means or wants. 

“Look at me, Dean,” Sam says and bites at Dean’s jaw to get his attention. Dean shakes his head, breath punched out of him on a moan when Sam grinds into him, hard. “Fucking look at me,” Sam snarls, and the hand on Dean’s head is gripping his hair now, pulling, tipping his chin up so that when he does open his eyes all he can see are the waterstains on the ceiling and the top of the headboard. His kid brother likes it rough. Dean wishes he didn’t know that; wishes he didn’t like it so much. Then Sam lets go and pushes two fingers into Dean’s mouth, pressing on his tongue. Dean wraps his lips around Sam’s fingers and sucks, swallowing so he doesn’t choke on his own spit.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “C’mon, just like this.” His hipbones dig into the flesh of Dean’s thighs and he drops down to his elbow so he can get his free hand over, cradling the back of Dean’s head. 

Dean’s legs slip, sliding on sweat, and he groans around Sam’s fingers as the head of Sam’s dick presses hard against his prostate, his own cock bumping against Sam’s stomach. He wants a hand on him, wants to come, wants Sam to come so he doesn’t have to look at Sam like this, so he doesn’t have to see what he’s done to his brother. 

He wishes he’d pushed Sam away that first time, sat him down, had a talk, not buckled and let Sam kiss him. He wishes he hadn’t kissed Sam back. He wishes he hadn’t got down on his knees and sucked Sam off, hadn’t let Sam push him down and suck his own come out of Dean’s mouth before he could decide if he was going to swallow or not, wishes Sam hadn’t pressed his thumb hard against Dean’s hole, dry and painful so Dean shot all over Sam’s hand then licked it off, and he wishes to Christ he’d never been born. Their father would fucking kill him if he knew. He wishes he didn’t want it so bad that he won’t stop it.

“Dean,” Sam says, licking at the spit leaking out the corner of Dean’s mouth. “Hey, you’re all right, I’ll get you there.” Then he’s licking at the corner of Dean’s eye. “I’ll get you there,” he says again, gentle in contrast to the pounding he’s giving Dean, and Dean would punch him if he wasn’t busy getting fucked within an inch of his life, and he’s not crying, the light’s right in his fucking eyes.

“Sammy, I can’t,” Dean says, muffled and mumbled.

“Yeah, you can,” Sam says, assured, pushing a third finger into Dean’s mouth. “You will.”

Dean does choke on his own spit then, swallowing convulsively, as Sam shoves into him, hard and precise, and Dean chokes, and shakes, and comes.

It takes a few more crushing thrusts, jammed up hard against Dean’s prostate so he’s whimpering from too much stimulation after the fact, before Sam comes. He pulls his fingers out of Dean’s mouth so he can kiss him, sloppy with satiation. 

“Fuck, _Dean_ ,” he says and Dean can do nothing but breathe hard and painful when his little brother pulls out of him.

Dean’s so fucking sick of himself. 

He rolls over and Sam slots up behind him, too hot, and they both stink of sweat and spunk and if Sammy doesn’t get off him right away Dean doesn’t know what he’s going to do but it’s feeling a lot like panic. It always does. 

Sammy noses at the back of his neck, slings one arm around Dean’s waist and tugs him back so he’s flush against his brother’s chest and thighs, ass pressed against the soft, wet weight of his cock. “Stay,” Sammy says, quiet. “I wish you’d stay with me.”

Dean closes his eyes, one arm traitorously over his brother’s. “Yeah, Sammy,” he says. “I’m right here.”

“Sam,” he corrects, sleepy and content, and Dean doesn’t argue.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean gets up around one in the morning, leaves Sam snoring into the pillow. He would shower, but it would probably wake his brother up, so he just cleans himself up as best he can with old wet-naps from some takeaway place three towns back, and pulls his clothes on. There’s nothing he can do about the way the car’s engine fires up, the roar and grumble, but even if Sammy wakes up, he’ll never make it out in time to pitch a bitch fit about it, so he doesn’t stop to worry, he just guns it away from the house.

It’s too late for the cops to be out, but since school’s been cancelled, Dean’s not taking any chances. There are probably plenty of idiots out breaking traffic laws, and he has no desire to be the one knucklehead that gets a ticket tonight. He drives right, uses his turn signal. He passes a speed trap and smirks to himself. Sometimes Sammy’s not the only smart one in the family; he does okay when it comes to the practical stuff.

Most of the windows are boarded up at the school, some scaffolding hastily erected, tarps rustling in the little bit of wind. Dean kills the engine of the Impala and gets out. Schools are always creepy when they’re empty. Something about all that teenage angst hanging around, Dean figures. The only light is coming from the street-lamps, which doesn’t help with the eeriness. He’s got a pretty solid case of the creeping heebie-jeebies working. Not that he’s scared, it’s just really hard to concentrate on what’s in front of him when he feels like someone’s walking over his grave while they watch him from the shadows, just out of sight.

He pops up the false bottom in the trunk and keeps it braced with an elbow. He keeps meaning to rig up something to hold it in place, but he only ever remembers when he’s actually in the middle of a job and never gets around to it. He grabs a shotgun, a pocketful of shells, a canister of salt, his EMF meter, which is starting to look kind of dinged up and sometimes refuses to turn on, and a silver knife, just to be safe. He realizes he doesn’t have enough hands to carry his flashlight, and stuffs the salt canister into one pocket, turns the EMF on and sticks it in the other. It’s bulky and kind of awkward, but he’d rather have the shotgun and the flashlight to hand.

It’s not hard to pry some of the boards away from the window and slip into the school. As a bonus, he’s in his English classroom which looked like it could be the epicenter of the problem.

The EMF is silent. There’s still glass on the floors, and the desks are pitted from impact, most of them jammed up against each other, piled in corners, toppled over. He can’t see any ectoplasm, but that’s pretty rare anyway. Paper that’s been dipped in tea and burned at the edges for some stupid class assignment was stapled to the boards on the walls, but now it’s peeling away, hanging in shreds. Dean clambers up onto one of the desks and tucks the flashlight between his ear and his shoulder, digging out the EMF so he can wave it near the PA system. Nothing.

He hops back down again and heads into the hallway. His footsteps echo and he keeps turning around, feeling like there’s someone behind him. Dean shakes his head, as though that will help. “C’mon, Winchester,” he says to himself. He feels like an amateur, jumping at shadows, but he’s not used to this, not used to having no one to watch his back.

There’s nothing near the lockers, nothing in any of the now-windowless rooms, nothing anywhere on the first floor.

Dean’s starting up the stairs to the second floor when he hears, “What the fuck, Dean?” 

Startled, Dean slips. He’s saved from falling down the stairs and smashing his head on the linoleum floor by Sam, who staggers back under his weight, but keeps them both mostly upright. The flashlight spins in circles on the floor casting strange shadows. Dean jerks away, shoving at his brother.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to breathe through the terrified pounding of his heart. “You nearly gave me a freaking heart-attack.”

Sam’s breathing hard too, and his hair is a riot of curls at the back, and a sweaty mess at the front. He’s in his jeans, Dean’s t-shirt, which is soaked with sweat, and sneakers with no socks. He looks furious. “What am I doing here? You snuck out in the middle of the night, didn’t tell me where you were going…what the fuck do you think I’m doing? I followed you, asshole.”

Sam has a paper route. Sam has a bike. He could probably pull fifteen miles an hour if he wanted. 

“I thought you didn’t want to hunt,” Dean says, picking up the flashlight.

Sam rolls his eyes, eyes black in the dark, looking older and less like the little brother Dean knows. “This thing blew out half the windows in the school, trashed the place, and you’re wandering around looking for clues like it’s going to turn out to be the fucking janitor.”

“Get back to the house,” Dean snaps. “I can do it alone.” 

“You shouldn’t have to do it at all,” Sam says, snatching the flashlight. “It’s bad enough…” he shakes his head, trailing off, and pulls a gun out of the back of his jeans. “Let’s get this over with.”

He stalks past Dean, up the stairs, leading the way with the light, Dean automatically falling in to guard their flank. It’s not the place to have it out, he reasons. He can let Sam have it later.

“I thought you left,” Sam says, quiet. “I thought you freaked out and left me behind.”

“What?” Dean asks before he gets it. “Shit, Sammy, no.” He can taste bile in the back of his mouth. This is so fucked up and he has no idea how it got this way. 

Sam checks around a corner and then starts down the hall, sneakers squeaking obnoxiously. “I know it bothers you.” His voice is even smaller now.

“It doesn’t,” Dean hears himself lie. It doesn’t matter anyway. This is how it is, and he can’t really imagine anything different. His guilt and his self-loathing don’t change how much he wants it, they just make the situation untenable.

They canvass the school and don’t find a single fucking thing.

“Maybe it is the janitor,” Sammy says, huffing out a sigh. “Can’t believe we hauled ass out here for nothing.”

“Ruh, roh,” Dean says. “C’mon. Let’s-” 

There’s a beam of light and the sound of footsteps. They both freeze then Dean elbows Sammy behind him and cocks his gun. He can feel Sam suck in a deep breath, ready to hiss something idiotic about how Dean doesn’t need to protect him, even as he hears Sam take the safety off his own weapon.

“Is someone there?” a familiar voice calls.

Dean hastily puts his gun away and turns in time to see Sam’s truly epic eyeroll. “Tommy,” Sammy mouths. “Great.”

“Winchesters,” Tommy says, coming around the corner, Doug right behind him.

“McQuaids,” Sam says, arms crossed over his chest, gun tucked away. “What are you doing here?” Stupid question, since none of them should be there, but Dean’s too busy scrambling for a decent lie to throw the McQuaids off to step on Sam’s foot.

Tommy sneers at him and pops his gum. “What do you think, Samantha?”

“Find anything worth stealing?” Doug asks. He looks tired and sounds weirdly disappointed.

Dean shrugs, but Sam’s already running off at the mouth. “I still can’t figure out which one of you mooks is supposed to be the brains of the operation,” he says, “because every time I rule one of you out and the other wins by default, that one fucks it up by saying something moronic.” Sam holds his arms out wide; big shoulders, skinny chest, sweat and muscle and bone. “Does it look like we stole anything or do you think we’re hiding the computers down our pants?”

Doug snorts out a laugh. “Guess not,” he says. “So what-”

Dean is struck by a sudden flash of genius. “Got any idea where they keep the floor polisher?”

“Buffer,” Sammy says.

Tommy and Doug share a confused look. “Janitor’s crypt,” Tommy says. “Why?”

Dean smirks. This is going to be awesome.

*~*~*

They buff the longest hallway in the school. Sammy and Tommy are both light enough to ride it, and they spend almost an hour crashing into lockers, knocking down the Don’t Do Drugs posters, falling off and skinning their knees and elbows, trying to catch their brothers who are in sock feet, sliding all over the place. Dean and Doug get gym mats and buff the bottom of them too. The gym mats go at the top of the stairs. Boots and sneakers, wallets and chains, jackets (Dean and Sam’s guns hidden under Dean’s jacket) are piled up.

They race down the hall, gliding on their knees, their sock feet, their stomachs, by the seat of their pants, and fling themselves onto the mats, and ride them down the stairs.

Sammy’s laughing, this crazy giggle, arms and legs everywhere, like he’s some normal kid. Doug tries to ride a mat down the center railing and falls on his ass, narrowly misses splitting his head open, but two seconds later he’s daring Dean to do better. Dean tries to ride the buffer down the stairs but the cord pulls out of the wall and he half-falls, half-runs instead, tripping on the buffer all the way down. Tommy stands at the top and fusses like an old woman until they all throw him on a mat and send him down the stairs headfirst.

By the time they’re lying on the floor, panting and sweaty and laughing too hard to get up, Dean realizes that he’s made friends. Something not unpleasant clenches in his stomach and he has trouble catching his breath. It’s been a really long time since he’s had friends around his own age who aren’t his brother.

“This really why you busted in here?” Tommy wheezes.

Dean shrugs, awkward where he’s lying down, with Sammy’s head on his stomach. “Nah,” he says. “We heard the place was haunted, wanted to check it out.”

Sometimes, he thinks, the best lie is the truth.

Doug sits up. “No shit,” he says. “I heard that too. Some local legend, right? I love that stuff.”

Dean has not heard of any local legend, and neither has Sammy. He remains prone, feigning casualness. “I heard it was some kid who hanged himself in the locker rooms,” he lies. It’s good enough.

Doug shakes his head. “No, man, it’s some story about some chick who got herself in the family way and drowned herself in the pool to wash away the shame.”

Sammy huffs out a breath. “This school doesn’t have a pool,” he says.

“Not any more,” Doug says in an ominous tone.

So much for that lead.

Doug McQuaid slaps him on the back as they go their separate ways, saying, “You’re a gas, Winchester. We’ll see you around,” and Dean feels way more pleased than he probably should. 

Sammy’s giving him a weird look as they drive off. Calculating, maybe. Dean ignores it, rolling his window down. “You smell like armpit,” Dean complains cheerfully.

*~*~*

The next day is a scorcher, the last gasp of the summer before it starts to get really cold. Dean’s out on the sloping porch, ass on the peeling boards, bare feet on the steps, when Sam crashes down next to him, elbows and knees everywhere. He’s only got his jeans on, hanging loose off his hips, low enough that Dean knows Sam’s not wearing any underwear. Dean picks a bit of loose paint off the porch, and tries not to think about it.

“Okay,” Sam says, and is that Dean’s fucking transcript in his hand? “Your GPA isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. A’s in shop, the various mathematics and chemistry, which is kind of disturbing. You’re doing what, English, Home Ec, History, Spanish…” Sam trails off into mumbles before visibly regrouping. “And you’re not going to test well, but I can probably tutor you through the rest of it.” Sam’s forehead scrunches up. “With some good letters of recommendation, and I know if you wrote Mr. Harris in Ohio and Mrs. Clifton in Arkansas they’d say something nice about you, they thought the sun shone out of your ass…Considering how strong your math is, the SATs might be easier on you than I’d thought, if we practice.”

“Sam,” Dean says. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you don’t love school,” Sam says, tossing his head to get his stupid hair out of his eyes. “Understatement, but it’s high school, only people who do nothing else in their lives love these years. You have options, Dean.”

Dean sighs and flops down onto his back. “Yeah, poltergeist or pissed off dead high schooler. And no fucking clues either.”

There’s a long silence and Dean figures whatever crazy idea Sam’s got can be ignored long enough that Sam’ll drop it. In the boards above them, a spider is making a game attempt at building a web. There’s a pretty stiff breeze so Dean silently cheers the spider on.

“Dean,” Sam says, putting on hand on Dean’s chest and leaning over so his stupid head is blocking Dean’s view. “I want…” he bites at his lip, fingers pressing in hard over Dean’s heart. “I want you to promise me something.”

This? This is not going to end well. “What?” Dean asks, suspicious. 

“Try. It’s just for a short while longer, and I’ll help, I will, so I guess I want you to let me help. I think you can do it.” 

“Do what?” Dean asks.

Sam leans in closer, more weight on Dean’s chest so it’s a little hard to breathe. “I think you can pull at least all B’s, probably even some A’s, and I want you to try.”

Dean groans.

Sam sits up and looks out over their scrubby front yard, arms wrapped around his knees. “I bet Dad would be surprised,” he says, which is a low blow and he knows it. “You know if he comes back and the thing at the school is gone and you’re pulling a GPA over 3.2 he’ll freak out. I’m not going to do the work for you, if that’s what you’re worried about, I’ll just tutor you.”

Dean feels like he’s missing the point. He knows Sam’s all gung-ho about learning and getting a decent education and all that shit, but why he cares if Dean knows European history is beyond him. He sits up again, too. “Why?” he asks finally. “Why bother? We’re not even going to be here for the whole year.”

Then Dean nearly has a heart attack because Sam’s holding his goddamned hand, resting his forehead against Dean’s temple, chin pointy and hard on Dean’s shoulder, where anyone could walk by and see them. “Please,” he says, which is not an answer, thank you very much. “For me, Dean,” Sam says, low and pleading. “Just this one thing.”

Dean knows when he’s lost an argument. And it’s going to suck out loud, but Sam’s right, John might be surprised to see Dean pull that off. “Yeah,” Dean says, telling himself that if he fucks it up, it’s not going to make much difference because no one but Sam is asking him to do this stupid thing. John said graduate, and he’s got that, Sam’s the one who wants more, so a little extra effort to keep the kid happy...it’s not going to kill him. “Okay.”

Sam’s smiling at him like he’s just done something amazing, bright and wide, and Dean’s got a terrible feeling that he’s promised something more, something he doesn’t know about, but then again, it’s his little brother, and it’s been so long since Sammy looked at him like that. Dean realizes he’s grinning back so he gets his brother into a headlock and noogies him mercilessly. “Geek,” he says and Sammy bites him so then they’re tussling down the steps and across the grass, not really trying, just horsing around. And yeah, that’s kind of awesome.

*~*~*

Dean has rules about running a long-term hustle. He flirts with the bartender, but not like he usually does. He asks her how her day is, he comments if she does something new with her hair, says, “it looks nice,” and he says it really matter of fact, not flirty. He maintains eye contact after the first appreciative, “I can’t help it, but ain’t I cute,” elevator look and he does the same thing every time he comes in. Checks her out, gives her the grin, and then goes about his night. He doesn’t hustle the other regulars, just the tourists, and especially the ones who give her shit. He tips her well enough that she can consider it part of the cut without feeling like he’s buying her off.

The routine is a little different if the regular bartender is a guy.

But not if that dude is queer. Then it’s pretty much the same.

This bartender is twenty-six and her name is Evelyn, her birthday is in August and she smokes when she’s stressed, so she smokes a lot, but not at home. She doesn’t smoke at home because she has an eight-year old daughter. The daughter’s name is Laura, her birthday is in May, she likes Transformers and My Little Ponies, not Barbies, and she ate sand, like, a lot, when she was a kid. 

Once, there was an emergency with the babysitter. Dean did not offer to pick the kid up, because that’s creepy. He held down the bar instead, and gave Evelyn the tips he earned. She went dutch and bought him dinner at a shitty burger joint and ate half his fries. Laura came along and kicked Dean in the knee for half an hour before he bought them all milkshakes and blew bubbles in his. Then, she grudgingly ate the other half of his fries. They’re buds now. 

Evelyn is smoking hot and Dean wants to fuck her more than he can reasonably describe. They get on really well. Hell, he even likes her kid, and Dean is not a kid kind of guy. But she thinks he’s twenty-two and that’s not in the rules.

It’s also against the rules for him to bring friends. It’s a really dumb move to bring the McQuaids.

“Okay,” he says. It’s Friday night and they’re in his car, Doug up front, Tommy in the back. “Look, I like this place, so don’t cause any shit, all right? Either of you punks gives Evie any trouble and I’ll throw you out myself. Do we have a deal?”

“Jeeze, Winchester,” Tommy says, “unbunch your panties. Are we here to have a good time or what?”

Dean twists around in his seat and eyeballs Tommy. “You carrying?” he asks.

Tommy sneers at him. “Maybe,” he says, “what’s it to you?”

“Not in there you’re not.” Dean isn’t really a lead by example kind of guy, but he pulls his nine out of his jeans and puts it in the glove compartment. “So either leave it here, or I can drive you home. Your choice.”

Tommy hands his own gun over and Dean sticks it in the glove compartment without looking. Later, he will regret this.

*~*~*

The brothers are pretty good at pool, but not as good as Dean. He considers hustling them, decides against it, but then Doug says something stupid and cocky so Dean takes fifty bucks off him while Tommy drinks a beer, making a face at the taste every time he thinks Dean isn’t looking.

“This is what you do for fun?” Doug asks. “Hustle pool?” Dean’s realizing that for all that he’s the bigger of the brothers, even though he talks more, Tommy is the one everyone’s scared of. He’s not sure why. Yeah, he’s got a nastier reputation, but Dean hasn’t seen shit to back that up.

Tommy’s perched on a bar stool, jacket hunched up around his shoulders. He looks like a doofus. Dean figures for all his bravado he doesn’t actually go to bars very often. Probably drinks cheap shit he stole from someone’s dad’s liquor cabinet. 

Dean chalks up his cue, hip against the table in a casual slouch. “Work at the gas station,” he agrees, “make sure my brother doesn’t get any shit.”

“So no locking him in the supply closet then? That it?” Doug says. “He can’t defend himself, doesn’t carry a gun like you?” Tommy quirks an eyebrow, but keeps silent.

“What the fuck would you know?” Dean snaps. “Sammy’s a goddamn genius. We’ve been to more schools than you’ve had hot lunches and he’s still got a four point oh. So you fuck with that, you give him any trouble, and I’ll break your arm in three places, see how tough you are then.”

Tommy slaps Doug upside the head. “He gets it,” Tommy says to Dean. “Take your shot already.”

Dean figures they might actually get to play for a few minutes, without any hassle but then Tommy opens his mouth again. “Doug says…” Tommy hesitates and Dean sinks two balls before turning around. Sammy was right, this kid asks too many questions. “Doug says your old man…”

Dean gives Doug a nasty look, then sighs. He’s too tired for this. He still has to sweep the school again, try and find some other clues. Evie is giving him worried looks. Sammy’s moods take the energy right out of him. “You’re like a fucking terrier with a rat,” Dean says. “My dad doesn’t beat my brother, my dad doesn’t beat me. He’s not even in town right now. Like I said, I’m sorry as hell about your dad, and I’ll help if I can, but I’m sorry, man, you’ve got the wrong idea about me.

“I know you guys are looking for a good time in a small town, get out of the house and cause trouble, but you’re looking in the wrong place. You already know all the pot-heads, and J.D. does coke, I think. Laurie is forging her transcripts so she can probably help you with yours, if you give her money. There are at least three bars in town that don’t give a shit if you’re underage, and there’s an arcade in the town over, if you have a lot of quarters you don’t need. But I don’t do that shit, okay? So quit asking.”

“J.D. does coke?” Tommy asks at last.

Dean shrugs. “That, or he’s really, whatsit, hyperactive attention deficit.”

They manage to finish the game with a minimum of hassle after that, and it turns out Doug’s a pretty funny guy when he’s not trying so hard to be a dick. Tommy’s still a little punk, but whatever. 


	5. Chapter 5

Already slightly lit, they pick up a twenty-four of beer, a handle of Jack, and Dean drives them down one of the access roads no one seems to access. It’s someone’s private property but Dean’s been shooting cans out here for weeks and he hasn’t seen a soul, living or dead. A little underage drinking isn’t likely to get anyone’s attention. 

“C’mon,” Dean says, turning the car off. The sound of the doors closing is loud in the still air. 

He leads the McQuaids a little ways off the road over to what might have been a boundary-marking fence at some point in the distant past. The fence is collapsed enough to make pretty decent seating so him and Tommy and Doug settle down and start into the hard stuff, slapping at the mosquitos that rise up out of the grass. Tommy lasts about two minutes before he wanders off into the dark to do God-knows-what. Commune with nature or some shit.

“Your brother’s kind of a light-weight,” Dean says, cracking open a second beer.

“Yeah,” Doug says, in an embarrassed tone of voice. He offers Dean a cigarette and puts the pack away without taking one when Dean declines.

“How come you move around so much?” Doug asks.

Above them, the sky is clear and the Milky Way stretches out past the curvature of the Earth. Dean feels small, and weightless, and a little bit drunk. “Dad’s a travelling salesman,” he says. “Mom died, so we go with him.” 

“That bites,” Doug says. “So you get left taking care of Sam?”

Dean shrugs and takes another long pull of his beer. “I don’t mind so much,” he says. “He pretty much looks after himself these days.” Dean wonders what Sammy’s doing, how pissed off he’s going to be when Dean gets back. If he’s going to want to fuck. He does another shot of Jack and washes the taste down with the last of his beer. It bothers him less when he’s drunk.

Doug rolls his beer can between his hands. “When’d you start?”

"What?" Dean says, panicked for a second, until he realizes Doug's still talking about John, and not about what him and Sammy have been doing. “Oh...Dunno,” Dean says. “Seven, maybe eight? Dad did shorter trips back then or he’d leave us with Pastor Jim. Old buddy of his.”

Doug tosses his can. It lands with a weirdly heavy thud as he opens a new beer. “No kidding? That’s screwed up, man. How long’s he gone for this time?”

Dean climbs down off the fence and lies down in the prickly grass, the sky spinning above him. “Couple of months, maybe half a year. Depends on where the job takes him.” He sits up just enough to drink some beer. The booze sits heavy in his stomach, anchoring him to the ground. He wants to tell Doug everything, just so someone else knows. “Did Tommy really do time in juvie?” he asks instead.

“Yeah,” Doug says. “Drugs.” He doesn’t seem worried about it, same way he isn’t worried that Tommy`s wandered off on his own. Dean can`t imagine being so careless with Sammy.

Doug flops down into the grass next to Dean. “Hey, Dean,” he says. “Where’d you get those scars from?”

They lie there in silence for a while, cicadas sawing away in the dark. Dean’s heartbeat thuds in his ears and somewhere, far off, he can hear a dog barking. He feels hot and cold at the same time. Dean wants to say something but he can’t come up with anything that isn’t the truth.

Doug sighs. “When I was fourteen, my dad caught me stealing his smokes. He beat the living Christ out of me with a belt but fact of it was, it wasn’t any worse than the times he lit into me for talking too loud, or making him mad, or getting between him and Tommy.” He passes Dean another beer. “You’re falling behind,” he says, which doesn’t sound right, but what does Dean know, he’s drunk.

“That why Tommy does drugs?” Dean asks. He finishes off the beer in his hand and takes the one Doug’s offering him.

“Sure,” Doug says.

Dean reaches over and pats Doug’s arm. “I could…” he says. “I could talk to your Dad. You know? I’ve…Thing is…That sort of shit doesn’t scare me. I could probably get him to stop.”

Doug looks at him, all the colour washed out of him by the light of the moon. He looks older, all the way grown up, mouth drawn down into a thin line. “Dean, you gotta tell me,” Doug says. “Who did that to you? You want to help me, let me help you.”

Dean can’t do this lying down. Sitting up makes the everything spin around him. He shuts his eyes and it feels like the world is whirling out of control. “Every town,” he says. “There’s always someth- someone. Hurting people. You take some damage, trying to help.”

The world is going way too fast. Dean staggers to his feet, manages to get a ways out into the field, and pukes. It’s a wash of liquid, the beer coming back up. He spits and wipes his running nose on the sleeve of his flannel. When he turns around he sees Doug is sitting there with his head in his hands.

“You okay, man?” He feels a lot better now. Dean washes his mouth out with beer and spits that out too before collapsing back down next to Doug.

“Really?” Doug says. “You go and fight dead-beat dads, and bullies, and gangs? Like fucking Robin Hood or something?”

Dean shrugs, figures ‘fuck it’ and starts drinking his beer again. “Lot of old ghosts in small towns,” Dean says. “I just help put ‘em to rest.”

“That’s fucked up,” Doug says.

Dean snorts out a laugh. “You have no idea,” he says. He wants to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. He imagines going town to town, righting the wrongs of the regular world. Like a travelling super-cop or something. _No need for thanks, ma’am. Always happy to help._ He figures there’d be fewer lives saved, but happier customers at the end of things. He shakes his head, tired suddenly. “Where the hell is Tommy anyway?”

Doug gets up, way too steady for the number of beers he had. “Aw jeez,” he says. “He’s probably passed out somewhere. Just listen for the snoring.”

They find him only a minute away, like Doug said, out cold. He’s one heck of a lightweight; must stick to drugs then. The whole thing makes Dean feel a bit sorry for the McQuaids. Mostly for Doug. He knows what it’s like trying to keep a family together, against the odds. The demons the McQuaids are fighting seem almost as bad as the Winchesters’, when you look at them while you’re drunk and maudlin. A different sort of awful, but awful all the same.

Doug gets Tommy into a fireman’s lift and hauls him back to the car. “Let me drive,” he says, after depositing Tommy in the backseat. Tommy snuffles, curls up on his side and resumes snoring. Dean wishes he had a camera. Talk about awesome blackmail material.

“No way,” Dean says, clenching his fist protectively around the keys. “I’ve driven when I’m way more fucked up than this.” He means bleeding, and in shock, and exhausted. He means driving with Dad in the backseat with a broken leg. He means driving when he was nine. But Doug doesn’t need to know that.

*~*~*

The lights in the house are off by the time Dean gets back. He stumbles a little getting up the porch steps and it takes him a couple of tries to get his key in the door but he’s quiet; doesn’t want to wake Sam up. Turns out Sam’s awake anyway. He’s sitting on the sofa in the dark, glaring at some late night bullshit on the television with the sound turned way down. 

“Hey,” Dean says. He wonders if this is what John feels like when he gets home late and Dean is waiting up for him. He hopes not. It feels shitty. 

Dean bends over to get his boots off, wobbles alarmingly, and sits down to do it instead. Sam gets up, locks the door, and stands there, all six foot fuck you of him looming over Dean. 

“It’s almost four in the morning,” Sam bites out. His fists and teeth are clenched. It’s been a while since Dean’s seen him so pissed. “Bars closed hours ago. Where the fuck have you been?”

Dean manages to wrestle one boot off and sticks his sock inside it. He sets into the laces of his other boot. They seem unnecessarily complicated. “Out with the McQuaid brothers, hah!” he says. “Doug’s okay.”

“Yeah?” There’s something dangerous in Sam’s voice. Something mean and possessive. The second Dean’s got his boot and sock off Sam grabs him by the arm and hauls him to his feet, pushing him back against the wall next to the door. “You reek of bar,” Sam complains but he’s pressed so close that Dean can smell Sam’s shampoo, his deodorant, see the little patch on his jaw that he missed while he was shaving. So yeah, Sam can probably smell beer from two inches away.

Dean’s not in the mood to fight so he lets Sam manhandle him, pull his jacket and Henley off. The jacket lands heavy on the threadbare carpet and normally Dean would object, but Sam’s hands are warm on his bare skin, tucked under his shirt; thumbs under Dean’s bellybutton, his long fingers spanning all the way from hip to hip, and he’s got his teeth into Dean’s neck like a freaking vampire, biting down the column of his throat.

“What happened to ‘don’t let Sammy out of your sight?’” Sam demands, a sneer in his voice. 

“You’re always telling me to leave you alone,” Dean objects. And it’s true. Sam keeps pushing him away. He doesn’t want to hunt, he doesn’t want to help Dean hustle pool, he doesn’t want to do PT, he doesn’t want to do research. He’s so angry about it and so Dean tries to give him his space. Then Sam’s mad at him for never being there for him.

Sam gets his hands on Dean’s belt, grabs the buckle and pulls; the force of it makes Dean stagger. For a second they just stare at each other and Dean doesn’t know why Sam’s so angry all the time and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. He thinks that Sam’s anger could swallow the world. He tips his chin up, not sure if it’s bravado or surrender but Sam flings the belt away. It bounces off the wall, leaving a small dent where the buckle hit the plaster and Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Don’t you dare,” Sam says, but Dean can’t remember what they were talking about. “Don’t you dare do that.”

Without the belt, Dean’s jeans sag low on his hips and when Sam pops the buttons of the fly open, they slide right down his legs. Sam puts his foot on the crotch of the jeans and Dean obligingly steps out of his pants. 

Sam wrestles Dean’s shirt off, grabs him by the elbow, and hauls him away from the wall. “Go,” he snaps, pushing Dean towards the bedroom. Dean goes and Sam follows, pulling off his own eighteen thousand layers as he goes, leaving his jeans in a pile where Dean just knows one of them will trip on them later.

Sam yanks the door to Dean’s room open and gets naked while Dean fumbles for the light-switch. It’s dark as hell in the room, curtains pulled shut and no streetlights for miles. One of them (probably Dean) is going to do himself a serious injury.

In the dim light coming from the television, still on in the living room, Sam glares at Dean and pushes him like he’s not moving fast enough. With his brother crowding him towards the bed, Dean gives up on trying to find the light-switch and just goes with it, half-tripping, half-crawling up onto the mattress.

Dean ends up sprawled on his back, Sam on hands and knees over him, caging him in. He pets at Sam’s hair, trying to say he’s sorry, he just wants Sam to be happy, without being able to put anything into words. There’s some confused emotion crawling up his throat and choking him. He doesn’t even know what it is. Love, shame, want, need, denial…

“Roll over,” Sam says, punctuating it with a slap to Dean’s thigh.

The movement makes Dean’s head spin again, just for a second. He’s way too drunk for this. Whatever this is. Sam pulls his boxers down his legs and tosses them over his shoulder. 

“I’m not picking all that up,” Dean complains. 

Sam bites him, hard, on his back. Somewhere between his spine and his right shoulder-blade. Dean can’t hold back the soft, pained sound that creeps out of him but he’s hard now, all the way. He squirms against the bedspread which normally would make Sam laugh but not now. He just holds Dean’s hips down and marks him up, all along his spine, his shoulders, the curve where ass meets back.

Then Sam pulls Dean’s hips back so his ass is in the air and pushes Dean’s thighs apart, so wide they hurt from the stretch. He’s expecting…Dean’s not sure exactly what he’s expecting but it’s not for Sam to coat his fingers in lube and take his sweet-ass time opening Dean up. He’s careful, and slow, and still mouthing along Dean’s back like he’s trying to leave a permanent mark.

They never take this much time with the preliminaries. Sam had the lubricant (some time in the past few months Sam had stolen it from some place and Dean couldn’t even think about his little brother casually swiping KY without feeling turned on and ashamed, never mind thinking about Sam actually _purchasing_ it) already out in plain sight on the nightstand. He planned this. They don’t plan this.

Dean shakes his head still unable to put his thoughts together enough to make actual words, and Sam bites down, hard. Maybe this time he drew blood.

“Shut up,” Sam says. Dean can hear Sam slicking his own cock and then he’s manhandling Dean again so they’re lying on their sides, Sam spooned up behind him. 

He pushes Dean’s leg up and forwards, tips him so he’s almost on his stomach and lines his cock up. Of all the stupid shit they’ve done. Sam’s forehead is pressed against Dean’s neck and his breath is hot and damp on his skin as he presses in so carefully, nothing but a sweet stretch that has Dean groaning and trying to shove back, to get away, something other than this. They don't do this. Of all their stupid shit. They don't do it like this.

Sam is holding on so tight Dean’s going to have more bruises. He’s not fucking Dean, not really, just grinding in in slow pulses that drag his cock over Dean’s prostate. He gets a hand around Dean, strokes him for a bit then presses long fingers back behind Dean’s balls. 

It’s fucking magical. 

“Jesus, fuck, Sam,” Dean says, reaching back so he can grab onto his brother.

Sam keeps going like that until Dean curses, body arched like a bow, and comes. Dean expects him to start pounding away but Sam just tilts his hips back so he’s not on Dean’s prostate any more, tilts his hips back until he slides out, still hard. Then there’s the wet sound of Sam jerking off.

Dean tries to roll over but Sam holds him down with his body weight and comes, slick and hot over Dean’s back.

There’s something else. Dean thinks it’s sweat at first, but then he feels Sam’s body shaking, the way his shoulders are bunched, and realizes Sam is crying.

“Sammy?” Dean says, and Sam curls up against him.

“Don’t do that,” Sammy says, low and rough. “Don’t you do that to me.”

Dean has no idea what he’s talking about. “I won’t,” he promises anyway.


End file.
